RAKU CHA RYU

Melody in wood I still remember my first trip to Kyoto. It was in July. One day, while some scattered rains washed the trees and refreshed the airs with a soft wind, I entered the walls of Nanzenji, one of Kyoto’s famous temples. The great gate and its darkened wood pillars exhaled a perfume close to incense and moss. A top note, sparkling and emotional, came from nose to eyelashes like tears of joy. Then an earthy wave, the middle note, fresh and light like a breeze among the oaks. And finally, for the base note, a deep blow of sliced wood, low and rich, rough on the palate and caressing on the nose. I never forgot that perfume of Nanzenji. To me, it is typical of central Japan. I think I mentioned it a lot before. I had to, eventually, give it a proper homage. The missing history of perfumes Tanizaki said that Japanese aesthetic plays on shadows to suggest things rather than to show them. I never read anything about the smells of Japan. Yet, more so than shadows,...

Japanese Pendulum Almost any westerner that wishes to write about Japan is in search of a "definition" of Japan. Most of the times, this definition cannot escape the opposition between the "authentic" Japan of untouched beauty that was  and that is not exactly anymore and the Japan of rush hours, nervous music and the thousand colors of synthetic clothes. Is there a way, a dialectic, to make peace between these two Japan- s ? After all, it is the same history that includes the zen temples and the poormen's casinos named pachinkos . But, maybe, trying to do that would equal to being too philosophical about it and not enough Japanese. To desperately want a simple coherence in history is sometimes not the best choice. A Japanese potter (and a famous artist) once wrote : Swinging like a pendulum I proceed, Never lingering in one place, Let wandering be the true state of being — Raku Kichizaemon XV As Kichizaemon suggests, we ...